Notes
Section 1 - Went Bob Dingy style, and didn't warm up. Decided my IT band only had so many steps today, so...I didn't waste any on warming up. Went with Katana racers. Tim saw I was wearing those, and said "Ummm...those look risky. Don't you think they may tear your achilles?" I replied "Eh...maybe. At least we'll get one good leg out of me...and then you'll have to run my other two." I was, of course, donning my uber-sweet Zensah sleeves. Everyone kept asking me about them...and my always popular answer was "I use them to pick up chicks." I was a hit! Anyway...
Marcus handed off to me in about...oh...7th or 8th I think. I decided to focus on the FF Masters team that was about 90 seconds in front of me, and run him down. Having not run in 8 days...I wasn't quite locked into pace. I glanced down at the Garmin at about .30 miles, and it said I had been running 5:10 pace. Oops. Backed it down...but about 1.25 miles or so, was a long, half mile climb. Ummm...that sucked. The lungs started burning, and I had a moment of doubt for my day...as I felt like I had perhaps totally screwed my race up in the first mile...but...I just kept stepping, and got to the top of the hill, cruised down the big downhill...and after a couple hundred meters, felt pretty good, and hammered home with a 5:26 last mile. Ended up only 30 seconds behind the masters team...so, all in all, a good start to my day.
Had zero achilles pain, and my IT band just felt a little tight near the end, but no pain. Of course...I had taken 11 ibuprofen in the 2 hours before the start of the race...hmmm...